Friday, 22nd March, 2013
Barcelona defender Gerard Pique believes that former club boss Pep Guardiola would have remained with the Catalan giants had they achieved European success last year.
The centre-back said that the team could have convinced Guardiola to stay for one more season had they gone all the way in the Champions League.
Barcelona lost in the semi-final of the competition to Chelsea, the eventual winners.
"You’re left with the feeling that maybe if we’d beaten Chelsea in the semi-finals and gone on to win the Champions League, we would have convinced him to stay another year”, Pique told Terra, speaking about the manager who will replace Jupp Heynckes at Bayern Munich this summer.
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Talking ahead of Spain’s clash with Finland, the former Manchester United centre-back also praised the performances of the club assistant coach, Jordi Roura, in the absence of manager Tito Vilanova, who replaced Guardiola at the start of this season.
"We can’t wait [for Tito to come back], although Jordi Roura has done an invaluable job standing in for him", he said.
44-year-old Vilanova is being treated for a tumour on a gland in New York.
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